


Crimes of Paris

by feverbeats



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:17:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8005375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And so her father teachers her to be like him. He teaches her how to drink, how to shout at people, and to never give an inch.</p><p>He doesn't teach her how to be safe, because he doesn't know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crimes of Paris

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: incest (parent/child), underage.
> 
> Title from an Elvis Costello song. Imagine Theo being played by Angel Haze, probably.
> 
> Also there is [a mix.](http://8tracks.com/feverbeats/armored-glass)

Her father always calls her Theo, because her mother is Theodosia. He teaches her to swear, and to read Latin, and that she doesn't belong to any man. He teaches her that she's a genius. Both of her parents teach her that she's more valuable than anything in the world.

Then her mother is dead and it's only Theo and her father. She's devastated, but not so devastated that she can't see that her father needs her. He cries, and eventually she stops crying.

And so her father teachers her to be like him. He teaches her how to drink, how to shout at people, and to never give an inch.

He doesn't teach her how to be safe, because he doesn't know.

Theo goes to school, and when she's not there, she's usually with her half-sisters. It's hard, though, because Theo is a difficult child. She has violent tantrums that even she can't explain, and that her sisters, who have a certain understanding of how girls should act, certainly don't. They weren't raised by Theo's father, and they were all grown up when Theodosia died.

As she gets older, her father is gone a lot, trying to build his political career from dust. Theo believes in him. She learns how to be a scholar, but not how to be a homemaker, and she never resents him for that, even when boys start to look at her and she doesn't know how to look back without daggers in her eyes.

Theo lives for the weeks when she gets to stay with her father. He still needs her, because there's nobody else he can trust, not even his friends.

She likes it when Mr. Madison comes around. His voice is soft and he's painfully intelligent. She wishes he didn't always look at her like he was afraid she'd fly into a rage, though. (Although that's fair.) One time she overhears him telling Mr. Jefferson that he thinks her father isn't fit to look after her.

"We'll put that in our back pocket in case we ever need it," Mr. Jefferson says.

Theo is very careful what she says to them after that.

As Theo gets older, life becomes more complicated. She doesn't have tantrums anymore, but she starts to realize that she's expected to be someone she isn't. Her father doesn't expect that, but everyone else does.

"Fuck them," her father tells her when a friend suggests to him that he's let her grow up too wild. "Fuck them all."

 _That's part of the problem_ , Theo wants to says. She'd like to. She'd also like to read their books and go to their schools and run for their offices. Those things, she thinks, her father would support. But he's made it very clear that she doesn't have time for men.

So it is that Theo is frustrated and resentful and bored, and her father is home very little. He's out fundraising for his campaign with Mr. Jefferson when there's a knock at the door. Theo opens it anyway.

Mr. Jefferson, who seems to do almost nothing for his campaign himself, looks delighted. Mr. Madison, standing next to him, just looks uncomfortable.

"Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Madison. My father isn't--"

"Good," Mr. Jefferson cuts her off, offering the bouquet of white flowers in his hand.

Heat flares in Theo's stomach. She's flattered despite herself, and she's angry at her father for spending so much time at work. And she's sixteen. She takes the flowers.

Later on, when it's almost midnight and her father still isn't home, she stops offering Jefferson and Madison wine. Theo is not a good girl, but she is a smart girl. She knows how much power Jefferson has over her father.

Besides, she's still angry, and she likes Madison's hands.

Her father finds out, eventually, and he screams at them, but the damage is done. Theo's never met anyone like Madison. He might be almost as smart as she is, and he's twice as callous as she'll ever learn to be. She'll keep quiet about it, though, out of loyalty to her father.

"Are you okay, baby?" he asks her over and over.

She's okay. She's carving out something that belongs to her alone. Besides--

"It might be useful," she says finally. "You and Jefferson--"

" _No_ ," he says. "Theo, that's not your job. I don't need you to get involved. That's for me to deal with."

But it's not. He can't handle it on his own, and they both know it.

Eventually, her father succeeds at something—almost.

Theo knows that that vice presidency is a horrible, all-consuming failure for him. Of course it is—first runner up just means you're another loser.

It also means that they're leaving New York. They're going to the Capitol and leaving everything Theo knows. Maybe it'll be a fresh start.

It isn't. Virginia is too hot. Theo wanders through the gardens of the Capitol in a daze. The flowers on the dogwood trees smell too sweet and the green leaves feel as if they're choking her.

Eventually she gives up trying to be a different person and just settles into being herself, unhappy as that makes her. She doesn't wear dresses that make her look like a whore, or anything like that. She's not _stupid_. She is also not the lady her mother would probably have wanted her to be. Theodosia was effortlessly classy, and if she ever had something rude to say, she said it like a lady. Theo doesn't have that kind of restraint.

Theodosia was a queen, but Theo's father never pushed her to be a princess. He pushed her to be like him, and she is. She inherited every single one of his terrible and wonderful qualities. She drinks too much and doesn't know how to be happy. She's violently ambitious and has no moral qualms.

It turns out that Madison likes that.

She sees a lot of him, under the pretext spending time with her father. It's easy enough to linger after everyone's done work and her father has gone off to a bar.

"You've grown up into quite the young lady," Madison says, one of the first times they meet like this.

"Ha," Theo says.

Madison sighs. "No? Wishful thinking, maybe. What are you doing with yourself these days?"

"Reading," Theo says truthfully, although _drinking_ is also true.

"That's . . . refreshing." Madison takes her arm. "Maybe we can go to my office and talk about books. I'd like to catch up."

To Theo's shock, they go to his office and talk about books. Nothing more.

A few weeks later, though, he says, "I see Burr's going out chasing women again."

"Mm," Theo says.

"So he's not going home." Madison raises his eyebrows at her and her stomach flips.

"You're a shithead and you're trying to ruin my father's life all the damn time," she says.

He grabs her arm. "I know. Shall we?"

She shouldn't be surprised that Madison is great at dirty talk. He's not rough, but he's precise and vicious. She's sobbing and shaking before they're done.

It becomes a terrible habit, and a secret from bother her father and Jefferson. She always feels dirty afterwards, either because of Madison's barbs or because this is a great betrayal of her father. (That's also why it's so good.)

Finally, Theo can't stand how much of a betrayal it is, and she just stops going to see Madison at work. She wonders if he'll call on her. He never does.

After that, Theo and her father are both drunk almost every day. She knows why he's unhappy. He's trapped in a fake job without any power, and someone he considered a friend put him in this position. She's a little more hazy on why she's so unhappy, except that she can't remember a time when she wasn't. Maybe before her mother died. Certainly not since she let Jefferson and Madison in. It's not just because she's not seeing Madison.

She and her father go to bars together and flirt with women and men. Her father usually takes a woman home. Theo usually doesn't. Sometimes her father fucks women in the alley behind the bar, when he's too drunk and miserably to be careful. Once or twice, Theo waits at the mouth of the alley and listens. Watches, a little. She feels lonely and sick, and at night, she closes her eyes and touches herself.

One night she and her father are drunk, and he's done flirting with a women wearing a wedding ring, and they stumble back home, leaning on each other for support.

She remembers almost nothing about the rest of the night, but she remembers her fingers undoing his buttons, her dress pushed up over his knees, the way the bed moved. She doesn't remember much about the first few months in Virginia.

Eventually, her father says to her, "We're out of money, baby."

They're always out of money. "You could marry a rich woman," Theo says.

They both consider this. He's been having trouble attracting respectable women as his financial and moral reputation has spread.

"I know a young man with a plantation in South Carolina," he says says.

In the end, Theo doesn't feel bought and sold. Not like she'd have expected. She's doing it to help her father, and they've both stopped drinking so much, which, while it doesn't feel good yet, probably will. Theo walks down the aisle with a man who she doesn't love, but who has money and land and a willingness to share it with her father.

Her father's friends are at the wedding, of course. It's a show of support, or something like it. As she stands at the alter, she can feel Madison watching her, and she feels hot all over.

Her new husband, Joseph, is also endlessly kind. She dreads the wedding night for two weeks, but all Joseph does is give her a small, confused smile when she says she doesn't want to come to bed.

She avoids Jefferson and Madison after she gets married, but eventually she can't stop herself from going looking for Madison. And of course he and Jefferson are in the same place. And she's been so bored with Joseph.

"Hey, girl," Jefferson says when she shows up at his office.

"Where's Madison?" Theo demands. Never _James_. Best to keep things clear.

"He's at a meeting." Jefferson shrugs, coming around his desk. "He does all the work around here."

Is that a joke? Not a joke? Theo can never tell with him. She's pretty good at being on top of any given situation, but Jefferson is an exception.

"Actually," Jefferson says, catching her eye, "I think we both know your father does all the real work."

"Funny," Theo says flatly. "He'd say that you're trying to undermine the little bit of power he has."

"If I didn't . . ." Jefferson is suddenly very close to her. "Well, I think we both know your father likes to take on little side projects, right, hon?"

Theo knows that her father has about six of these semi-legal ventures at present, about half of which qualify as unambiguous treason.

"Where's Madison?" she asks again.

"He says you've been bugging him." Jefferson smiles. "That you really should go play with kids your own age."

Theo really doubts that, but not enough to avoid feeling a little hurt. "Kids like you," she says.

Jefferson laughs. "I knew you'd come back eventually. I'm glad Burr brought you along. You're a non-stop thrill ride." He reaches out and touches her waist.

She's going to bite him if he kisses her. She really is. But somewhere in between the motion of him pulling her close and her eyes shutting, she forgets. His hands aren't as good as Madison's, but they are good. And besides. This could be useful.

Useful, but humiliating. She knows Jefferson just wants to hurt her father, and maybe that makes it _more_ humiliating when he hauls Theo onto her hands and knees on his desk. It's a big enough desk now that he can do that. Because he's president.

Afterwards, she tugs her dress down as quickly and possible and slides off the desk. She didn't even come. She feels shitty and miserable.

"So maybe you'll be letting my dad help out a little more often," she says. Her voice doesn't even shake.

Jefferson laughs, incredulous. "You really overestimate the value of your skin, sugar."

Theo grits her teeth hard at _sugar_ and spits out, "No, I just think you don't want to find out how my father reacts when he finds out you fucked me again."

Her father always told her that it's okay to do whatever it takes to get what you want, even if it means using your body. That it doesn't make you a whore. That it doesn't matter what people think. Theo has tried and tried to make that be as true for her as it is for him.

Jefferson's expression tightens. "Okay. I get the point. But Theo?"

She's never fast enough to leave before he gets the last word.

"You're never gonna be anything but James's side chick. You know that, right?"

She keeps walking.

A month later, she still hasn't slept with Joseph and she realizes she's supposed to be bleeding and she's not. She does some panicked, breathless math and realizes that there's only one answer.

There will be jokes, she thinks, about whose baby it is. Everyone says she's too close with her father. It isn't better that the baby is Jefferson's.

She tells Joseph, and unbelievably, all he says is, "We need to go back to South Carolina. I want you away from these people, from--"

He doesn't say _your father_. He's too polite, or too obedient, but Theo understands.

And she can't be quiet, can't be polite, can't watch her mouth--

"Fuck yourself," she says.

Joseph, steeped in Southern manners, looks horrified. "Theodosia!"

"My name is Theo," she spits. "And you're a fucking means to an end. Never forget that. I'm staying here with my dad. He needs me."

She wonders for a second if he'll hit her, but he just looks hurt.

A few months later, her father gets a letter from a man he's sworn never to speak to again. Philip Hamilton is dead. Theo had always thought, in the back of her mind, that maybe she'd go home and talk to him (nicely, for once) and maybe they'd hit it off. One more avenue closes off in front of her.

She's visibly pregnant when she's waiting for her father outside work and runs into Madison.

He looks her up and down. "It's nice that you have something of your own," he says icily. "I didn't think you and Mr. Alston would do well together, but apparently I was wrong."

 _Oh my God_ , Theo thinks. _He doesn't know._ That's fine. She can keep that secret.

"Are you upset?" she asks. "Really, Madison? Your wife is hot. Young, too. Older than me, but young." As if this weird little _thing_ between them had any kind of future.

Then Madison steps a little closer and says, "Still, I can't see you as a housewife. Tell me that's not the plan."

"My plans are my business," Theo says, her fingertips tingling with excitement. "And you're not going to be involved in them."

Hurt flashes in his eyes and she feels sick with relief.

"Let's have a fucking argument about books," Theo says.

And it's all right. Little Aaron is born, and he's the light of her life. Her father loves him, her husband loves him (despite everything), and she loves him. For a few moments, everything is fine.

Her parents' story always sounded so romantic to her. A clandestine romance in wartime and an actual happy ending, at least until her mother died. What does Theo have? This sad collection of half lovers. A husband she's fucked a grand total of once, just to try it, and whose bank account is all that matters to her. A few smothered, drunken mistakes with her own father. And maybe Jefferson was right about Madison.

So maybe she's just like her father. A homewrecker who wants too much and doesn't know how to get any of it.

But Joseph is a good friend. And she's her father's world. And she has more of Madison, she suspects, than anyone else does. What else? There's a dogwood blossom in her hand. She's more than the men who've touched her. Her father tells her (still, even now) that she could be president someday, when they're climbed high enough and broken down the laws. So who knows?


End file.
